Does It Matter If the UK Could Not Recapture The Falkland Islands Again?
The recapture of the Falkland Islands in 1982 is, rightly,
one of the proudest moments of post-war British military history. The operation
to send a task force thousands of miles from home, operating at the end of a lengthy
logistical supply chain and then fight against a brave, talented, and
professional foe before securing victory is something that represents a truly
audacious military operation. The importance of fighting to defend your territory
and protect your sovereignty is also a message carried to this day by Ukraine,
in the valiant efforts by the magnificent women and men of the Ukrainian armed
forces repelling the illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion.
The question that has dogged media coverage since this point,
usually in light of defence reviews and cuts to the armed forces is ‘could the UK
mount another Falklands operation?’ Its an article that has been rolled out
many times over the years, usually with soundbites from whichever ‘I used to be
someone important’ or ‘I like to think I’m an expert’ retired senior officer happens
to be contactable on the day. It is guaranteed to get read by many, rile up readers
and generate ad-traffic which is the name of the game these days. It was only
last week that this article reared its head again, this time in the Telegraph,
where it reported on concerns by veterans of the war that the UK could not
recapture the Falklands if required.
When articles like this get printed, they usually generate a phenomenally predictable set of responses and ever increasingly fantastic scenarios about how the UK could lose control of the Falkland Islands, which in turn demonstrates the enormous peril we’re all in right now. Last week was no exception…
If you listen to internet experts, the current risk to the
Falklands is that the Argentineans could apparently send a cruise ship full of
marines into the islands, land them and somehow take over. Alternatively they
could send a passenger jet full of commandos, pretend to be having an inflight
emergency and then land at RAF Mount Pleasant and then take over in an Entebbe
raid. Finally they could somehow have magically regenerated their forces via a
benevolent third party (currently favoured partner is China) and launch an invasion.
In this scenario sometimes the Chinese will land too, helping take over the
Falklands on behalf of a grateful Argentina. At this point the UK will clearly have lost
the war due to our weakened ‘woke armed forces’ being too busy singing kumbaya
to have time to defend the country. It’s hard to know where to begin with this
nonsense, but it is helpful to occasionally debunk it and remind people that things
aren’t quite as bad as they imagine.
In the case of the first scenario, which we’ll call ‘Speed 3’
on the grounds its even worse than ‘Speed 2’, the whole premise relies on
managing to get a cruise liner into a harbour without anyone realising it isn’t
actually a cruise liner. For starters cruise liners don’t generally have
vehicle ramps in the way a military assault ship does, and they are reliant on
host nation support for berthing, power and getting ashore. The bigger cruise
liners use transfer boats which will land passengers and shuttle them to and
from the ship.
The fundamental problem with this scenario is, assuming that
no one in the Islands spots a mystery unplanned cruise liner turning up and
doesn’t assume its an issue, how do you get your troops ashore? At best you’ll
get a small cadre of uniformed troops on the ground before the alarm is raised
and all hell breaks loose. At best you may get two or three loads of passengers
onto the island before both the Falkland Islands Defence Force (HQ in Stanley)
or the garrison at Mount Pleasant are scrambling to repel you.
Even if you can get your troops ashore, you’ve got a small number of marines on the ground, no means of landing heavy support, logistics or comms and no easy way of getting other reinforcements (assuming the UK would probably notice an Argentine warship sailing towards Stanley). This means your troops are sitting ducks against a heavily armed garrison which also possesses a runway capable of accommodating modern aircraft bringing reinforcements very quickly. This doesn’t end well for the invaders.
The next scenario, which we’ll call “Airplane 3” in homage
to a plot even sillier than the original 2 movies (‘surely you can’t be
serious Humphrey – I am, and don’t call me Shirley’) involves a planeload
of commandos landing and taking over the airbase. There are several issues with
this plan. Firstly it requires the UK, which has over 40 years of running air
traffic control in the region and which has a thorough understanding of flight
patterns to spot that an aircraft unlike any ever before seen on that route,
has diverted so badly off commercial lanes that it needs to land. Secondly it assumes
the aircraft is permitted to land without being escorted in by the resident QRA
flight of Typhoon interceptors (and given they usually escort in visiting jets,
this seems highly unlikely). It then assumes that having let them land, the
Argentine forces rapidly escape the aircraft and run amok around the airfield
without being stopped or caught. This again seems rather unlikely and also
doesn’t end well for the invaders.
The final suggestion that somehow Argentina reequips their military is the first point at which we’re seeing a vaguely sensible idea. There is no doubt that Argentina would like to rebuild its armed forces, but they are an incredibly low priority for funding. The Argentine Navy comprises three 40 year old destroyers, a small number of corvettes and OPVs and a single amphibious cargo transport ship. It has no active submarines, no modern warships and no naval aviation capability to speak of. The Argentine Air Force does not operate any modern fighter jets, and may have at best 6 A4 Skyhawks active, a derivative of a fighter aircraft that first flew 69 years ago. There is no political support, or funding to buy new fighter jets.
To create a scenario where Argentina poses a serious
military threat to the Islands requires several things to happen. It needs a
sustained period of years of investment to order, build, deliver, train and
operate an entirely new navy, air force and army capable of conducting amphibious
operations, and have this underpinned by an effective logistics and munitions stockpile.
Even if China could provide the entirety of this force for a pittance, it would
still take many years to build and deliver. It would also require a significant
expansion of Argentine personnel strength and refurbishment of their military
bases. All of these are moves that would no doubt be noticed by the UK and also
South American member states with both alarm and appropriate responses. If the threat
level changed to the extent that more reinforcements were needed in the
islands, this could be done discretely and ensure that Argentine options were
countered appropriately. If we are at the stage where the Argentineans have
managed to bring forces together, train them in a combined operation, deploy to
the region and manage to maintain the element of surprise, then frankly this
would be the greatest intelligence failure in British history. It is difficult
to envisage circumstances where such moves would not be noticed or acted on in
some way.
Even if they did manage to get to the islands and land, the
Argentines will then encounter the problem of capturing the fortress that is Mount
Pleasant. Built in the 1980s, the MPA complex is the ultimate Cold War airfield
and represents the last entirely new military airbase ever built by the RAF from
scratch. It is a veritable fortress, placed in an intentionally difficult position
that is hard for an attacker to march to and attack on foot and even harder to
get vehicles to. It is a long distance from Argentina, making it harder to get
air raids in without being picked up by the extensive air defence systems in
place. There is a wide number of defensive positions and in a time of tension, every one in the garrison would be
well armed and able to quickly fill a defensive role.
Any attack would need to move quickly to deny a runway intended to survive a complex attack and remain open and which would shortly after the first invasion signs were seen, be teeming with seriously pissed off British reinforcements spoiling for a fight. Control of the runway would also see rapid reinforcement of land attack aircraft such as the Typhoon which would pose a real challenge to any attacking force. The attacker would need to land, advance towards a hostile site without easy cover in place and no easy location to get stores or dig in. They would then need to advance onto a facility which for nearly half a century has been waiting for this attack and taking its training responsibilities very seriously, and where they know every inch of the land. They’d then need to try and launch a frontal assault onto arguably the single best defended conventional military installation operated by the British military and do so in a way that manages to both capture the site and deny the runway for an extended period. It is, to put it mildly, a wicked problem.
In the most extreme of these scenarios, some people assume that China would somehow align with Argentina to the extent of attacking the islands, or at the very least clamping down on a UN response. If we need to rely on the concept of the Chinese Government willingly going to war with another nuclear power in support of the illegitimate sovereignty claims of Argentina, then we’re into fiction so bad, it could have passed for some of Tom Clancy’s later works.
This is not to say it could not be done and there is no doubt
that there are people out there training very hard, purely as a contingency, to
work out how it could (in their eyes) be done. But it would represent one of
the most spectacular combined arms operations ever accomplished if it was
pulled off, and would require the Argentines to overcome years of neglect, lack
of experience and training and work jointly to deliver the mission goal. We
must hope that such an operation is never attempted, for the cost would be too high.
The simple fact is that British defence policy, force structures and outputs is
not based on having to generate a force that can retake the Falkland Islands. It
is instead based on making the Islands defensible to the point that no
adversary could reasonably hope to capture them without incurring vast losses in
the process.
This matters because from a planning perspective there is a danger
of media and public pressure to ‘be able to recapture the Falklands’ shaping
the wider defence planning assumptions. If the UK is committed to this as a
course of action it locks the MOD in to maintaining a maritime force capable of
sailing a Brigade plus sized force around the world to conduct an amphibious
landing – a useful capability, but not one that is in huge demand anymore. If
you look instead at where assets are required, the focus is far more on exciting
future littoral operations, such as cooperation with the Netherlands on the
future UK/NL amphibious force, as so ably demonstrated by HMS ALBION this week
in Den Helder, or its on working with NATO partners to deter Russia. Focusing
on the delivery of a ‘Falklands Task Force 2.0’ is to overcommit resources to solve
a problem that is unlikely to materialise again without decades of planning and
changes in the Argentine position that would easily be detectable by the UK and
countered appropriately.
Focusing on the past is sometimes a very healthy thing to do
– we can learn much from prior operations and how to do them differently in the
future. But we should not be locked into a posture for all time, simply because
we’re worried about a problem that doesn’t exist. The solution to the Falkland
Islands dispute is actually surprisingly simple, but calls for Argentina to
recognise the Islanders as human beings and treat them as such. Maybe over time
engaging with respect and a willingness to change the record may generate more
goodwill than Argentine threats and treating people who have expressed their
democratic desire to be British as second class citizens. The lesson of the
Falklands is that democracy is a priceless gift and must be protected at all
costs from those who would take it by force, but equally we must look to the
future positively and not be shackled by the past. Hopefully in time Argentina
will look to build more positively on cooperation and collaboration with the Islanders,
not threats and cajoling and acting in a manner that rejects democracy and
sustains a frozen conflict, thus enabling the UK, Falklands and Argentina to
form a better future together for the benefit of all.
All fair although complacency has caught us out before. In terms of our defence commitments to British overseas and crown dependencies, it would seem obvious that the army should be orientated around defending these islands and if necessary fighting the second battle. Admittedly the risk to those islands is negligible though. So I wonder if a force optimised for the first and second battle on those islands has a dual utility when it comes to NATO, which also has a number of islands and in terms of posing a threat to the flank of any Russian push down through Norway. It would be positive if a force posture could meet both missions. But might it mean no first battle contribution in Estonia. Trade offs and wider utility come into it.
ReplyDeleteI just don't get this constant winge of faux jeopardy. The UK won in 1982, with armed forces that were optimised for a totally different war and in the process of having the last of their "out of area" capabilities gutted, fighting against a credible regional power. Now we have armed forces optimised for out of area and the weaknesses of 1982 addressed. Argentina's current capabilities are some of the survivors from 1982.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of legitimate concerns about the UK's armed forces v. the current, primarily in-area threat, but an inability to defend or retake the Falklands isn't one of them.
I think the Falklands acts as a good litmus test for the army, navy and air forces long range expeditionary and strike capability which explains some peoples obsession. I think it is not unreasonable to expect the armed forces to be able to expel a couple of brigade from an entrenched position without major coalition partners while still maintaining a watch on Europe.
ReplyDeleteWhile Argentina is weak now, a lot can happen in the next 20 years, and it would take more than 20 years to rebuild expeditionary capability.
I think that it is wrong to call Mount Pleasant a fortress unless something about it is well hidden. It is held by a single infantry company with light weapons. A single well served 120mm mortar could outrange and shutdown the entire base. Once you have the airfield you can land full jets, unlike in 1982.
I think the same tools you'd need to retake the Falklands could be used from Finland to Taiwan, from Singapore to Cyprus, so I do not think the "Falklands test" is an irrelevant metric in which to measure our capability.